The murders of a wealthy masochist
in his apartment and a woman on an empty bus are linked by
cut-out illustrations from the E.T.A. Hoffmann fairy tale
"Shock-headed Peter" left at the scene. Inspector Lomenzo
(Michele Placido, OEDIPUS ORCA) soon learns that the two
victims were founding members of the "Wildlife Friends" club,
who preservationist activities were a front for wild orgies at
the villa of the group's president Hoffmann (John Steiner,
TENEBRAE). Lomenzo learns that a scandal four years
prior lead to the disbanding of the club, at which point
Hoffmann sold off his menagerie and went to Amsterdam where he
died. The case file on the scandal is empty and its disgraced
investigator Del Re has mysteriously disappeared. Lomenzo learns
from model Jeanne (Corinne Clery, THE STORY OF O) that a
young prostitute had a heart attack at the villa when the
drunken revelers tried to pull her into a cage with the tiger.
As Lomenzo searches for the dead girl's recently released pimp
Augustino (Claudio Zucchett, BURIAL GROUND), the members
of the Wildlife Friends fear for their lives and consult private
detective Struwwel (Eli Wallach,
THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY) who leaks some selected
information to Lomenzo. Lomenzo manages to catch the pimp, and
the papers declare the killing spree over, which simply gives
the Wildlife Friends a false sense of security since the murders
continue...

Raro Video USA's
HD-mastered dual-layer, progressive, anamorphic presentation is
a major improvement over Raro Video Italy's non-anamorphic,
single-layer disc. The image is darker, but the colors are also
richer (framing appears identical). The English and Italian mono
tracks are comparable between the two releases. I only noticed
one spelling error in the optional English subtitles. Some
viewers may be confused by a character referring to the
detective protagonist as "doctor" in the English subitles, but
this is an honorific (used sarcastically in this case), and may
also notice that the English subtitles translate the title of
the fairytale that figures into the murders while the English
dub retains the Italian translation (but keeping the translation
unclear is important to a revelation late in the film).

Raro's Italian
edition was barebones apart from a text biography and
filmography for the director. Raro's American edition adds new
interviews with the writer Ernesto Oldoni (who discusses his
collaboration with co-writer Bernardino Zapponi [SATYRICON]),
the director's son Pietro Cavara (whose interview is something
of a well-prepared essay on his father's oeuvre and his approach
to the giallo genre), and actor Michele Placido (although both
actor and interviewer seem ill-prepared and the camerawork is
clumsy). Raro USA's
YOUNG, VIOLENT, DANGEROUS promised a PDF booklet but it
was absent from the disc. PLOT OF FEAR also promises a
PDF booklet (by Fangoria editor Chris Alexander) and it is
indeed present (Raro have decided to go back to printed insert
booklets with their next releases).